utorak, 23. travnja 2013.

[Physics] - Spectramorphic Iridescence (2013)

Signifiers can send all the wrong signals just as often as they can send the right ones. There's a delicate balance between enticement and giving it all a way. Resident Los Angeles android, [PHYSICS], rides that line and then some on his first LP, Spectramorphic Iridescence. Glazed electronics and polymorphic beats run through wetware enhancements left behind by future civilizations. This music is black ice for all the hackers, ready to fry circuits from the inside and hardwire your dreams. Even with the neuron-popping hooks from opener "Anodyne Dream" or the crystalline "Isosceles Trapezoid" acting like sandman for your brain, there's a dark undercurrent all throughout Spectramorphic Iridescence. Death-march rhythms snake through "Emerald Forest," adding an extra sinister layer to all the cryptic stabs. As it bleeds deftly into "The Keep," this is the ghost trapped in the machine, tortured into obsolescence. [PHYSICS] continues pounding the electricity, waiting for the last voice to drown beneath the bloated, cybernetic waves. Revenance is left behind while genetically-altered corridors fill with spies, pushing everything to a frenetic pace. Moments of sonic ecstasy filter in when they can, though, finding heavy tranquility cycles with "Realization" and album closer, "Ultimate L." It's over-the-top, sugary synthetics laced with all aural opiates you need. "Ultimate L," especially, achieves maximal catharsis through countless layers of slowly evolving tones. It's grossly beautiful. [PHYSICS] have crafted an album steeped in cyberpunk lore, complete with neon death rays and jacked-in viruses. Spectramorphic Iridescence weaves a singular narrative through thoughtful sequencing and impressive songwriting. Before the end it manages to sing its dystopian hymns like a mythic artificial intelligence finally freed from its VR prison. - digitalisrecordings.bandcamp.com/

Excellent debut on Digitalis trading on unstable pop and smudged electronic bliss. Highly recommended for followers of Hype Williams, Vangelis, Oneohtrix, Bola!Resident Los Angeles android, [PHYSICS] unveils his debut LP 'Spectramorphic Iridescence' for the Digitalis label. Glazed electronics and polymorphic beats run through wetware enhancements left behind by future civilisations.Even with the neuron-popping hooks from opener "Anodyne Dream" or the crystalline "Isosceles Trapezoid" acting like sandman for your brain, there's a dark undercurrent running throughout Spectramorphic Iridescence. Death-march rhythms snake through "Emerald Forest," adding an extra sinister layer to all the cryptic stabs. As it bleeds deftly into "The Keep," it's the ghost trapped in the machine, tortured into obsolescence. [PHYSICS] continues pounding the electricity, waiting for the last voice to drown beneath the bloated, cybernetic waves.Moments of sonic ecstasy filter in when they can, though, finding heavy tranquility cycles with "Realisation" and album closer, "Ultimate L." It's over-the-top, sugary synthetics laced with all aural opiates you need. "Ultimate L," especially, achieves maximal catharsis through countless layers of slowly evolving tones. [PHYSICS] have crafted an album steeped in cyberpunk lore, complete with neon death rays and jacked-in viruses. Spectramorphic Iridescence weaves a singular narrative through thoughtful sequencing and impressive songwriting. Before the end it manages to sing its dystopian hymns like a mythic artificial intelligence finally freed from its VR prison. - press.morrmusic.com/

Los Angelino android [PHYSICS] logs into the vaporwave cloud with this engrossing debut album of synthesised electronic emotions and holomorphic narrative. Paralleling the piloerect melodic triggers of Oneohtrix Point Never and the trans-dimensional fidelities of Hype Williams or James Ferraro, 'Spectramorphic Iridescence' is a like viscous psycho-sonic balm for those pleasure centres that respond most acutely to futurist nostalgia, a silicone VR vaporub of frothy arpeggiation and digital enzymes totally recalling alien memory implants from our DNA altered by decades of viral binary cultures conceived in the Hollywood labs and hi-tech valleys only miles from the artist's base. Oscillating between neon darkness and smudged ultra-violet light spectrum the journey swerves from Vangelis-lite Blade Runner themes in 'Anodyne Dream' to the neuromantic geometrics of 'Isosceles Trapezoid' and the Citrac-esque cyber gunk flow of 'The Keep', before ascending to the quick bliss highlights of 'Cardinal Perplexogram' and the melting moire glisten of 'The Grid Vanishes', to conclude with a melodically and emotionally ambiguous, flickering AI glance in 'Ultimate L', leaving the neural gateways open for a sequel, or possible prequel. - boomkat

‘Spectramorphic Iridescence’ shows the next step in vaporwave’s evolution. [PHYSICS] stays true to the hazy disorientated sound. Typically a lot of vaporwave tends to have an emotional detachment but [PHYSICS] turns that approach around. What exists instead are plenty of oddly charming pieces. Elements include the obvious distortion, even noise, but also earlier movements. Pieces of early Cabaret Voltaire’s funky industrial work can be heard in some of the more aggressive work.

‘Anodyne Dream’ starts out with stately melody growing ever larger and triumphant. It remains one of the more instantly accessible pieces. One particular album highlight is the lush ‘Isosceles Trapezoid’ is pristine. How [PHYSICS] lets this evolve into something so moving is quite incredible. For the funkier industrial soundscapes there’s the playful ‘Emerald Forest’ which might have easily come out of the early 80s. Then there is the paranoid ‘Hydrazine’ whose elastic sound is pure tension. ‘Cardinal Perplexogram’ is another highlight of the album successfully combining a plinking beat with a polychromatic melody. For a finale ‘Ultimate L’ sends it off on a cinematic note.

Pop rules over the album with nearly all songs clocking in within the three minute mark. Many subtle references can be picked out of the album of contemporary artists particularly within the older hypnagogic movement. Rangers’ work with hypnagogic pop on ‘Suburban Tours’ is a good reference point as this album has many similarities between ‘Spectramorphic Iridescence’. Both albums take a previously distant sound and bring it closer. [PHYSICS] excels at transforming these mechanical sounds into something much more human. -Beach Sloth

Flatform - Quantum + Trento Symphonia + Movements of an Impossible Time + A Place to Come + Can Not Be Anything Against the Wind + 57.600 Seconds of Invisible Night and Light + Sunday 6th April, 11:42 a.m. + About zero + With Nature There Are no Special Effects, Only Consequences (f)

Ben Rivers - The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afraid and the Two Eyes are not Brothers (f)

Cheryl Frances-Hoad - Glory Tree (m)

Thomas Adès - The Twenty-Fifth Hour (m)

Daníel Bjarnason - Over Light Earth + Processions + Solaris (m)

Dobrinka Tabakova - String Paths (m)

Jacek Sienkiewicz - Nomatter (m)

Veli-Matti Puumala - Anna Liisa (m)

Bill Douglas - Trilogy: My Childhood, My Ain Folk, My Way Home (f)

DIALECT - Gowanus Drifts (m)

Robert Enrico - Au coeur de la vie (f)

Kara-lis Coverdale & LXV - Sirens (m)

Uljana Wolf - i mean i dislike that fate that i was made to where (b)

Mempo Giardinelli - Sultry Moon (b)

Jean-Marie Straub - Dialogue d'ombres (f)

Klaus Hoffer - Among the Bieresch (b)

Maxim Biller - U glavi Brune Schulza (b)

Svend Åge Madsen - Days with Diam + Virtue & Vice in the Middle Time (b)